Do many of you remember those cheap East Coast USA to LHR fares back a couple of years ago? You could fly for about $250 RT including all taxes in off season, Boston, Washington, New York to London Heathrow on various competitive airlines.

Now, you can't pass through LHR without shelling out $250 in taxes. The weak dollar, the high security taxes, London fares are about $450.

Going to Stansted, Ryanair et all keep their fares low by flying out of secondary London airports - Luton and Stansted to be precise. I imagine that some of the high tax costs would be alleviated if the US majors flew direct to Stansted. The new all business airlines nowadays (i.e. MaxJet) are flying JFK - STN.

I think that if some of the US airlines started flights to Stansted it would not be such a bad idea, if it would keep fares inclusive of tax down.

Also, for young and budget travelers doing Europe from the US, I think there is a potential market. For many/most travellers London is still among the cheapest direct destinations from the US. Getting in early to STN and then catching a cheap flight to Spain, Italy, Germany, or wherever via EasyJet or Ryanair may not be bad.

Of course, the later part would probably not be a thinking goal of the US airlines, as they would likely a person transferred to one of the respective alliance partners, but still...

Every time I went to Stansted back in my days, I am amazed how many Americans are there transferring somewhere for cheap - My brother, for example, last summer visted a friend to Germany. He was to originally book a flight on LH BOS-MUC. It was about $1200, which I though was kind of a lot even for the peak summer season. The fare to LHR was about $700 with taxes, and then STN to MUC direct was $100 return. Worked out perfectly and much cheaper...

But the airlines don't want planes filled with tourists who paid rock-bottom fares. They need some premium traffic aboard to make the flight pay, and not many premium ticket buyers care for STN.

Eos, MaxJet, etc. are challenging that theory with comparatively low prices for "business class style" service, but... the margins have got to be thin; the service apparently can be spotty (I read a completely scathing review of MaxJet in Business Traveller magazine); there's no connecting service or useful FF program, etc. I'm skeptical.

And even if STN is a draw for people connecting to LCC flights to the Continent, that doesn't do the American majors any good... nor BA or VS for that matter.

Right, I am not saying eliminate all flights to LHR, but start to include a few flights to STN. I mean there is enough flights to London from the US, even some less-than-a-hub airports have more than one flight a day or more than one airline flies.

So it would not be a big problem to the business customers.

And if business customers were the only revenue for the airlines, well, then why fly Y-class people at all?

I imagine you are wrong. The UK government does not charge different tax rates (such as the now-enormous air passenger duty) depending on which airport you use. Any passenger service fees charged by airport operators will be relatively minor in comparison.

That said, I'd love to see more service from STN.

Ok, for the sake of argument let's take an intra-European flight. You go on travelocity, you click LHR to AMS and the fare is 20 pounds or so. Then you selected the ticket you get priced out, and the all inclusive fare jumps to 70 pounds. So 50 pounds is taxes.

You go to EasyJet.com and try to book STN to AMS, and the taxes are approximately 15 pounds for the return?

How is this???

That's a straw man; no one said anything like business customers being the only revenue.

For the sake of argument, I can make up numbers too! That proves nothing.

If you want to support your argument, look at the breakdown and see how much is due to actual taxes like air passenger duty, and how much is due to "fees" which are actually set by the airline, and may or may not bear any relationship to their costs at the airport. Ryanair, in particular, has been scrutinized for posting airport-specific "fees" that bear zero relation to what they are charged by the airport operator.

I don't think airlines have a mandate to keep fares down. If anything, they would like to see them higher so they can be more profitable.

In the case of AA or UA, for instance, are there adequate Star Alliance or One World carriers for onward connections at Stansted? If you can't make the connections at Stansted, they're not even going to look at it as an option.

I didn't say they were the only revenue, did I? I'm saying you need a balance. All-coach tourist-and-backpacker US-UK services like Laker and PeopleExpress haven't worked historically even serving closer-in LGW. And all-business-class airlines are typically seen as a bad idea -- vulnerable to business downturns, and hard to fill in August or around the holidays. (Branson's initial idea about VS was to make it an all-business-class airline. Wiser heads talked him out of that in about five minutes.)

The only transatlantic carrier that has bravely cultivated a bunch of secondary stations in the UK is CO, which serves LGW, BRS, BHM, MAN, GLA, and EDI I believe, but which closed STN a few years ago owing to poor performance. STN is too far from London to be a credible third LON airport, and not close enough to another major city to generate enough O/D traffic. I think there are pretty good reasons why it hasn't developed as a transat base.

There is a very simple explanation for this. Easyjet is fairly unique in quoting fares inclusive of PSC (Passenger Service Charge). Most (if not all) other airlines list PSC as a separate item, i.e., under "Taxes and Charges"

So then what supports the outrageous taxes at LHR? It seems that all airlines coming from the US add up $250 for RT via Heathrow?

There are non-LLC carriers at Stansted. But even if Stansted was the last destination what is wrong with that? It does not have to be a hub.

Again, this service is supplementary to LHR, it does not replace it.

1) Far is a relative term - 30 miles. I bet going into Liverpool street (where there is a lot of business it's faster to come from Stansted then Heathrow, even with Heathrow Express.

2) Stansted had over 23 million passengers last year. It's hardly chump-change, and believe me it's very "creditable."

3) CO pulled out post 9/11 when everyone was pulling out due to the downturn. The situation at EGSS since then has changed significantly. It is one of the fastest growing airports in Europe.

Stansted may not have Premier Exec Lounges for the many alliance members here, but it's no shack. It's growth has been based on the LCC's that prospored there. And while the rest of the alliance partners have been hit, LCC's [from Stansted] have very much changed the way Europeans go about their traveling. The LCC have done something right.

And I don't think it's a bad idea to fly into there...

Hey, why don't you stop making up numbers with no explanation? It really just confuses the issue. Seriously.

Here's the tax breakdown for a random AA RT JFK-LHR.

Of this, only �40 is UK tax. That tax would be the same at any UK airport. Your thesis that the tax is smaller at STN therefore has no merit.

The only bit that might depend on which airport is used is the PSC. This is not a tax, but is a cost of business of the airline, just like buying fuel (for which AA adds a $127 surcharge here as one of the "fees" that you have been regarding as "taxes"). It has more to do with what the airline decides it wants than with some actual per-passenger charge from the airport or government. For example, Virgin Atlantic has decided that the LHR PSC is �14.10, not �13. (Why? Because they feel they can get away with it, same as the fuel surcharges.)

In any case, even if you now realize that you are talking about differences in passenger service fees, the largest difference it could make is �13 for a round trip. And it won't be that much, because the airlines will still decide they want to add on this "fee."